Jay-Z to work his magic on ‘The Great Gatsby’

By Kramer Phillips, National Monitor
| January 03, 2013

Rapper Jay-Z will reportedly score “The Great Gatsby.”

Director Baz Luhrmann has already gathered a star-studded cast for "The Great Gatsby" (including Leonardo DiCaprio, Isla Fisher, Carey Mulligan and Toby Maguire) but the Bullitts recently revealed on Twitter that rap superstar Jay-Z will score the film, increasing anticipation for the movie months before it appears in theaters.

"Jay-Z and myself have been working tirelessly on the score for the upcoming #CLASSIC The Great Gatsby! It is too DOPE for words!" the Bullitts tweeted on Sunday.

Luhrmann has directed "Moulin Rouge!" and William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" (which also featured DiCaprio) among other movies. Luhrmann is known for thinking outside of the box and using fantastic music to drive his plots.

Jay-Z, who will work with Seal's brother on "The Great Gatsby," is well-known for his collaborations. In the early 2000s, for instance, the rapper worked with Beyonce on "Bonnie & Clyde." According to Forbes Avenue, this collaboration was a big deal because it added to speculation that the two might be dating and it was the first time that the two sang on the same track together.

In many respects, Jay-Z has become a household name because of the success of his collaborations. Later in the 2000s, Jay-Z worked with Alicia Keys to produce the memorable NYC-anthem, "Empire State of Mind."

Reaction to the announcement online was overwhelming positive:

"The feel of Jay's music is of course infinitely more relevant to scoping the film's environs than is the likeness of his character or personal history. And what better beats to roll out the larger-than-afterlife Gatsby persona than the grandiose productions of our one and only Hova?" wrote The Atlantic's James Hamblin in an article entitled, "Too Dope for Words: Jay-Z is the Ideal Composer for 'The Great Gatsby' score."

The Huffington Post's Madeline Boardman agreed with Hamblin.

"Is there any better embodiment of the American Dream than the Brooklyn-born rapper? Especially with his famous line — 'from Marcy to Madison Square' — Jay-Z doesn’t shy away from his upbringing in the Bedford-Stuyvesant housing projects while proudly proclaiming his newly-obtained superstardom. It’s a story that jibes with the flashy wealth of the movie’s titular character, Jay Gatsby," she wrote.

Jay-Z's "No Church in the Wild" can be heard in the movie's trailer, which was released to the public last May. For the time being, however, only our imaginations can help us figure out what Jay-Z has in mind for "The Great Gatsby."

There were several hints last year that Luhrmann's use of Jay-Z music in the film's trailer was not the only work that the rapper would do with the film. Luhrmann reportedly listened to the rapper's music on the set of "The Great Gatsby."

"On my first day he had Jay-Z pumped up full, and we did the entire scene with, you know, Jay-Z in our ear on full blast while acting, and it was just so liberating," Fischer told MTV News.